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CNET Update

Foursquare enters a new era of dual identities

With a revamped app and logo, Foursquare focuses on local search and moves check-ins to the new Swarm app. Meanwhile, immerse yourself in the Sharknado experience with the help of the Philips Hue smart lightbulb.

2:53 / July 24, 2014

Transcript

Foursquare is going through a bit of an identity crisis.
I'm Bridget Carey and this is your CNet update.
Foursquare, the app that became popular five years ago for location check-ins.
Will no longer have check-ins.
The ability to broadcast where you are to friends has been split off into a different app.
It's called Swarm.
Foursquare is also changing its logo, dropping the check mark and bouncing ball from the game it's named after, and now is using a big, flashy superhero style F. Perhaps Four Square sees itself as the hero to help in your quest to find a restaurant.
The app is completely refocused as a search tool, to find nearby places and share reviews.
Just like Yelp.
And I must say Four Square is a good search tool, when you're on your phone looking for a nearby place to eat.
You can customize the app now, to show recommendations tailored to you, such as highlights of places with your favorite types of food.
Apps have to evolve sometimes to stay relevant.
After all, you can broadcast your location on just about any network these days.
This update could help FourSquare become better known as a search tool, but by vanquishing the check-ins to a separate app and killing off the gamification features of points and badges.
It's essentially killing off what made the apps famous in the first place.
Time will tell if this new Swarm spin-off can thrive on its own.
In other news, some photos have leaked of the rumored Samsung Galaxy Alpha smart phone which is said to be a higher-end model of the Galaxy S5.
And it could be launched within the next two months.
That would be around the time of the iPhone 6. These photos were posted to a Vietnamese tech blog and like many leaked images they're out of focus.
When will these sneaky spy photographers just learn to shoot photos.
We can learn more details by early September during the Samsung event at the ISA tech conference in Berlin.
And if you've ever wondered what's the point of having a. Smart light bulb, you can wonder no more, the Phillips Hue connected light system has a new trick.
It's able to use an app to sync up with the audio from a movie, so the LED bulbs change color based on what's happening in the scene, and of course, the first demonstration of this ability.
Will be for the world's premier of Sci Fi channels Sharknado 2 The Second One the Sci Fi synced second screen app will use audio cues from the movie to send commands to the bulb.
To change color depending on the scene nothing like red light engulfing your room when the chain saws come out Am I right?
This moment of television history takes place the night of Wednesday, July 30th, and you can learn more about the hue connected bulb and all the other tricks it can do from our review on c/net.com.
That's your tech news update from our studios in New York, I'm Bridget Carey

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